I think my youngest sister once had the worst Monday ever. She’d spent the night with me. When she was getting ready to go to work, she realized she’d forgotten her slip and absolutely had to have one since her dress was sheer. I dug mine out and we pinned it up for her. I made her a nice lunch. As she went out the front door in the rain, she realized she’d left her lunch behind. She whirled to come back in, tearing her stockings on the screen. After, I found her another pair, she grabbed her lunch and headed out again, late by now, hanging her heel on the threshold, breaking it off. Of course, she fell down the steps, hitting her head, skinning her knees, tearing her dress, and destroying a second pair of stockings. She just came back in crying, called in to work, and spent the rest of the day in bed nursing a headache.
Storytelling
Don’t Bother Reaching for Your Umbrella, It’s Probably Broken!
Top pic: Me and the kids in baby’s first days. Notice how I don’t appear to know how to manage. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Bottom Pic: Children about six months later
The baby was tiny. I hadn’t seen anything but tonsils, poop, and Sesame Street in three weeks. My three-year-old-jabbered non-stop. My ears were sore. Naturally, with the clear-thinking of a woman with near terminal post-partum depression, I took full responsibility everything that went wrong. I don’t know if my husband was a good father or not, since he Continue reading
Afternoon Funny
Beatrice wished her husband was around to have ‘the talk’ with their maturing son, The she remembered his absence was her fault,
Hoping for a boy or girl?
Until I was eleven the only knowledge I had of how boy’s anatomy was an occasional peek at a little boy during a diaper change and a quick image of a whirling behind if I happened to walk catch a brother, or a cousin sneaking a pee outdoors. From that, I mainly felt envy that I couldn’t pee on stuff.
Imagine my surprise when my friend Margaret informed me exactly what the facts of life entailed. She even called it “The Facts of Life.” Her story: Mr. Brown who topped three hundred pounds easily, took off all his clothes, every night, and stuck his peanut in Mrs. Brown, who coincidentally weighed at least two hundred pounds. He peed inside her and laid on top of her all night. I knew this wasn’t possible. Anybody that walrus laid on all night would be smushed. Mrs. Brown was not smushed. She had enormous breasts, and a pendulous belly. I told Margaret she was lying and went straight to my mother.
I told Mother, Margaret had told me a big lie, the “Facts of Life.” I guess Mother thought I had gotten a prettier version. She was annoyed, saying she intended to tell me herself. She went ahead and gave me her version, involving a boy and girl falling in love and getting married. True, they did indulge in some “intimacies”, her word. These “intimacies” would result in a baby. I was never to even consider such a thing until I was married.
Armed with her confirmation of the truth Margaret had told me, the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Brown burned in my mind, I assured her it would NEVER happen! They should teach this version in schools.
Move Over, Medusa, We Got Ya’ Beat!
First Grade School Picture
Repost of an old post few people saw
To curly-haired people Mother might have seemed mild-mannered enough, but beneath her calm exterior she nursed a sadistic streak, committing home permanents with malice aforethought, ignoring her helpless daughters’ protests that “I like my hair this way.” and “nobody but old ladies has THAT kind of hair.” squashing arguments Continue reading
On Melvin
On Melvin’s good days, he was eccentric. Other days, he tipped toward fanaticism. While he was in the army in Korea, he wrote home asking Mama how she’d like a Korean daughter-in-law. Mama wouldn’t like that at all. Answering her it was just a joke; that was the end of it. After mustering out, he came home and married Maggie, a young widow with a son. Almost immediately, they had a son, then a year later, a second who was born with birth defects. Melvin became was inconsolable and melancholic, sure his child was being punished for his sin of abandoning the woman and child in Korea he’d not having the courage to marry and bring home to his disapproving family.
Isolating himself, Melvin gave his life to God becoming an evangelical, Hell-fire and brimstone preacher in a sect of his own concoction. Sadly, his fanaticism made life on his family so hard, poor Maggie left when he tried to force her into following his fanatic beliefs. Eventually, his membership abandoned him to preach to an empty church, which he still does. He brushed the divorce aside, insisting that “What God had put together, no man could put asunder.” Though she could barely tolerate him, he considered himself still responsible for Maggie under the eyes of God, visiting her periodically and providing her with things a man should provide a wife, clothes, assistance with upkeep on her house, and money. She wasn’t afraid of him and really needed his financial help.
He was unyielding in his beliefs, demanding that his children follow rules he lay down, disowning his adult son, a fine man, for drinking beer, alienating the second with his bizarre demands of fealty. Eventually, he “adopted” a family of immigrants who were faithful to his religious beliefs, cutting his own children off. He eventually got so deep in debt supporting the family, that he filed bankruptcy. At the age of seventy-eight, he still works full-time to pay off debts he co-signed for them. Maggie has since died. From time to time, I still see Melvin, standing on the rural roadside, holding up his Bible, hoping to find someone to preach to.
I feel for this lonely man who has alienated himself from society and everyone he loves for what looks to me like to be an unnecessary sacrifice in the service of God. I hope there is a blessing for him, sometime, somewhere.
https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2015/11/04/sweet-hour-of-prayer-2/
https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2015/11/04/yall-got-a-snake-in-yalls-tree-2/
Sweet Hour of Prayer
Maggie married Melvin shortly after her first husband died. Maybe she should’ve waited longer, but she was exhausted after her long struggle to support Ray through his illness and then Little Ray after he died, so she was glad to have Melvin’s companionship and support, even though he was odd from the start. Things went well enough for several years, but by the time Melvin reached his late forties, he’d developed religious delusions that made him impossible to live with. Continue reading
Y’all Got a Snake in Y’all’s Tree!
It’s not everyday one hears a dynamic statement like this! Melvin was the ex-husband of Mother’s old friend, Maggie. A good man, he’d gone just a bit “off the rails” and Maggie, had reluctantly left him as a result of his increasingly fantical religious leanings. Mother and Daddy had long been faithful congregants of their church, only missing services if unable Continue reading
Fancy Dan, the Coffee Man
We splurged and bought a Fancy Dan coffee maker in 1987. It was heavenly staggering into the kitchen to find a carafe of freshly made coffee waiting at five in the morning. True love! We enjoyed it precisely one month before we got a recall notice and a gift certificate for a replacement to use while we waited for the fine new Fancy Dan. It seems the original was setting houses on fire.
We went into mourning and trashed Fancy Dan, picking up his replacement, a very plain model. About a year later, our new Fancy Dan arrived. Dan had our steaming coffee waiting when we awoke. All we had to do was “sasser and blow it.” It saved our marriage. Alas, a mere six joyful months later we received word that this model was also likely to be an arsonist. Out came the plain old replacement model till we made it to the store with our gift certificate for a new pot.
Since1987, that faithful coffee-maker has one back on the shelf six times, only to be called back into service when the fancy new one failed. Less than a month ago, we were once again seduced by a coffee-maker with lots of great features. It had a water filter, reuseable basket instead of filters, several cup size settings, and a beeper to let us know when coffee was brewed. Of course, it would have our coffee ready when we got up, which by now, we had no intention of using, having no wish to roast in our bed.
We hurried home and moved Old Faithful back to the shelf. We couldn’t wait for the first pot. As soon as we hit the brew button, water poured all over the counter. We reseated the pot and tried again. We were rewarded with a second gusher.
Old Faithful went right back to work. When I’m gone, my kids can draw straws to see who gets Old Faithful. The loser gets the family fortune.
Rattlesnakes, Bullfrogs, and Saran Wrap
Bud really took offense with Bubba, his college suitemate just because Bubba was trying to pick up a little easy money. It seems Bubba’s biology professor paid five dollars apiece for snakes. One Sunday evening, Bubba came back from a trip home and tossed a burlap bed under his bunk and went on his merry way. After a while, his roommate heard rattling, investigated, and found a sack full of rattlesnakes. Bubba was rounded up and he and his snakes were evicted.
The roommate and the suitemates felt a little payback was in order. The next night, they rounded up a bullfrog and left it in a bag under his bunk. As soon as the lights went out, the frog started croaking. In case that wasn’t enough, one of them stretched Saran Wrap tightly across the toilet so Bubba got a shower when he went to pee.
It got ugly after that!
Nutsrok 